A Day in the Life of a Cattle Rancher at Coal Creek Farm

The weather today looks mild, so I’m getting an early start. I love walking around Coal Creek Farm in the mornings, and today I brought a bag to fill with the trash that blew in over the winter. It’s incredible how even though we try to collect it all, scraps of plastic from the round hay bales get caught in the tall grass along the fence line. I consider which field we should wrap and store the hay in (for next season.) We can’t turn the cattle out into fields with the wrapped bales because we don’t want the cows eating the hay or the plastic covering them. We are still feeding the cattle our hay from last summer, and we have a surplus, so there is no need to skimp, especially with calving season upon us. After picking up the plastic wrapping, we load and haul two more hay bales to the soup bowl for the cattle to enjoy.

After lunch, we follow the fence line from the main house to the brick wall up on the hill. The wall is an artwork created by Martin Creed, a British Contemporary artist. It serves no farm purpose but is cool to look at, along with the other art at Coal Creek Farm. The field where it lives is called “The Wall Field.” 

We made a few fence repairs but then found a more significant issue. A tree fell across the fence, and our Charolais bull took advantage, escaping through the gap. We got him back where he belonged and repaired the fence to prevent him from escaping again, at least from this spot.